I found Susan Henderson’s interest in learning more about Writer’s Relief today because I wished to learn more about WR and was doing on-line research. I appreciate what you all have shared. (Big thanks Susan.) A part of me knows I can do the work that WR does, I am doing it. Another part knows that it takes a lot of time that I’d rather use writing. Like Mark Hughes I subscribe to Ploughshares, Zoetrope, One Story, Night Train, etc. Also, I have ZERO interest in vanity presses.

I am a California songwriter/vocalist, poet, and the author of two unpublished novels, The Loose End of the Rainbow and Emma’s Love Letters, as well as numerous short stories. I am currently querying literary agents and diligently writing my third novel. I also mentor young and/or new writers. My website address is: www.astarrynightproductions.com

I’m fifty-five. I have been writing since I was nine. I’ve seldom been published. I’ve rarely tried until recently. For about eleven months now I’ve queried approximately 200 literary agents and a few publishers that accept submissions from agent-less authors. I’m confident that I will secure a terrific agent within the next hour, day, week, month, or decade. I share the following with you all to make you groan and chuckle. I wish you all joy and success with your writing endeavors.

FROM MY FILES:

From an agent: I’m not available because I’m getting married and I’m too busy for new clients. Your novel, Emma’s Love Letters is too short for my consideration anyway. Increase the word count by 25,000 words. Good luck.

From an agent: I apologize; I’m not available to unpublished authors. I only accept new clients that already have published success. Your novel, The Loose End of the Rainbow is interesting. Unfortunately, it is the first in a trilogy and I don’t like the working title you have for the second novel. I wish you the best.

From an agent: Dear Ms. Pacini, Regarding your question about titles for your novels I must say that the last thing that matters at this point is what your titles are. I believe you will find that publishers often change titles for numerous reasons. Don’t be married to a title.

From a publisher: Thanks for your query. Emma’s Love Letters is a bit longer than novels we publish. Can you shorten it by 5,000 words? Your novel, The Loose End of the Rainbow is much too long for our consideration, especially since it is the first in a trilogy.

From My “Dud Agent” List:

At one point I decided to email agents and ask if they were accepting queries because a high number were not. Most agents have explicit query instructions. It takes time to query precisely as an agent wishes and it’s disappointing to receive a quick response that the agent is not accepting queries.

An agent responded to my email that asked if she was accepting queries. She curtly told me to follow the query instructions on her website. I carefully followed the elaborate instructions. One minute after I emailed her my query she sent me a “Dear Author” email saying she is not accepting queries at this time.

Fortunately, most agents are not this petty. There are undesirable or disreputable agents out there for many reasons. Authors must be careful. You want an agent that will love your work, an agent that will develop a mutually respectful relationship with you. Always research, be smart. Securing an exceptional agent is as important as writing an exceptional book.

Getting Published (Factual Accounts:

My friend’s niece: One day a doctor casually mentioned to a patient that she was concerned about her struggling writer-daughter. The doctor did not know the patient was a literary agent. He offered to read the manuscript, liked it, and signed the young author.

A man I know bought a “to go” cup of coffee and a muffin each morning after having breakfast in a small café. Outside he gave the coffee and muffin to a homeless mentally ill woman. After a while the café’s owner asked why he did this. My friend said that he has empathy for the woman, people consider him mentally ill too because he is striving to be a writer. A few weeks later the owner’s cousin was there. They shared a pleasant breakfast and my friend gave him a copy of his nearly finished novel. (Like many writers he carries extra copies of manuscripts, just in case.) The cousin said he knew a brilliant literary agent that may be willing to read it. A couple of weeks later the cousin was there again, with a woman and some good news. The agent loved the novel and wanted to sign him. Who was the woman? She was his wife, the agent.

A woman I know had the great pleasure of meeting Rod Serling in the early 1970’s. She was a young woman and she was delighted to talk with him about The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, and Planet of the Apes. Rod Serling preferred to hear about her short stories. He really listened to her when she described her characters and story plot ideas. When he was leaving she thanked him for his kindness. He told her that she has something to say that is worth listening to. She still strives to make sure that his generous statement remains true.

A woman I know tried to secure an agent for years. She finally gave up and decided that at least she had written her book for family and friends. Last year her grown granddaughter happened to be sitting beside an agent on a plane. When it landed the agent had agreed to read the manuscript. He liked it, signed the author, the book was published, it hit the best seller list, she’s been asked to write more books, and they are now considering movie offers.

A woman I heard about (from another writer) was in a park. She found a friendly dog with an address on his collar. She drove him home. The frantic owner was a literary agent. He offered a $$$ reward for the return of his beloved dog. She asked him to read her manuscript instead. He read it, referred her to another agent, and that agent signed her.

I now wander around parks searching for lost dogs.

*******

I am a writer with a self-published fiction novel. I did the writing, editing, proofing, etc. myself, because I couldn’t afford to hire someone to do that. I have 3 kids and a mortgage, not to mention the current cost of gas across this price gouging nation - after food, gas, electric etc., there’s not much money left at the end of the month for proofreaders etc. and not much time either.

With everything I had to do, I still managed to write and keep track of what I’d sent out, who I’d contacted etc. I’ve received more than a few great reviews, and have gone the route of trying - and still trying -to get a literary agent on my own; I’ve done 2 internet radio shows that deal with interviewing authors both known and unknown, been voted the book of the year by one, and done so many other things in the course of a 1 year period to get my book out there; did I mention during that year that my mom died and I had to make the final arrangements for her services and contribute money to bury her? I did it all and still had to get my kids to school, basketball practice, football practice etc.

Wow, if there really are people out there who pay for those types of services, than I’m certainly in the wrong business. Unless you can GUARANTEE me that paying you will net me a reputable agent with a track record, I won’t pay for your services.

Don’t pay anyone to edit. Don’t pay anyone to help you submit. Don’t pay anyone to publish. God forbid, don’t pay anyone to publish or a pox will come down on your house

Meanwhile, independent filmmakers who pay for their own projects are hailed as groundbreaking. Musicians who produce and release their own CDs are paying their dues. And artists who create their own exhibitions are avant garde.

I haven’t used WR and am still not sure if I want to pay out that money, but I feel bad for the people who might not look for a little extra help because someone else told them real writer’s simply don’t pay money in order to get a leg up on the competition.

6/11/2007

I chanced across this blog/website after googling Writers’ Relief.

I’m in the middle of inserting the edits they suggested on this the second story I have submitted to them.

After reading all the above comments I was provoked to submit mine when “Mike Williamson” asked, “if anyone professionally published and earning even part-time living as a writer has used this service.”

I have a book due out in June with Ink and Paper Group Publishers. You can order it from their website or amazon. And this is my second consecutive round of using Writers’ Relief.

Have I gotten a story published? No
Do I “earn at least a part time living as a writer?” No. But I have studied under many writers published with big name houses in New York and few support themselves on just their publishing. Many have advised that once published you might very well make MORE money from speaking engagements than your writing. Which brings me back to Mark Hughes’ comment, “ in business…focusing on what you’re good at, letting others do what you’re not good at, or at least what you can afford to shop out, is a very efficient choice.” Writing is a business. Many well-established authors have told me this. I trusted them and after focusing on creating the best work I could and submitting it after over 100 rejections for other works I sit three days from when the published copies of my first book is due back to the small press in Portland that took me on when I didn’t even have an agent. Which brings me to another point. I chanced across my publisher through a monthly service I pay for, First Author, that again, I PAY to send me minute to minute updates on what magazines, publishers and agents are seeking mss. Grant it, First Author’s Fee, at $3.99 seems on the surface, less than Writers’ Relief. But the concept is the same. I can’t tell you how many mailings of query letters and mss I have made over the last thirteen years in search of getting published.

I never imagined I would get a publisher first. I am yet to have an agent and have learned I am not alone. Many seasoned writers are AGENT-LESS, because as time goes on and money grows tighter in the economy and certainly the amount circulating in publishing, fewer and fewer agents will survive and be around to hold the gates for the few large publishing houses that remain in New York.

Which brings me to my third point. I do not know what or if I’ll get a story published through my alliance with Writers Relief. I do know they take their service seriously.
At the end of April I submitted my first story for a second time since I had heard from only a few of the 29 submissions I’d made as instructed by the packet by Writers’ Relief
created for me. In truth I had not had time to refine another story—and I have many—in the last few months because I’ve been SO BUSY doing edits requested by my publisher for my book, and once that was done, working with the marketing director and publicist on getting the word out on my book. At a small press you have to put in a lot of energy. They include you in the process of helping sell you book unlike at the larger presses where unless you’re in the top 20% of their authors who get 80% of the money allotted for publicity. I will be doing a reading from my book July 23, 2007 at Shakespeare & Co. in Paris. Am I paying my way? Yes. But unlike with the new contracts Simon and Schuster is wrangling new and unknowing writers into my press does not own my book for a lifetime. It’s a fairly reasonable amount of time and less than 2 decades. Even the entertainment attorney who oversaw my contract and had overseen those done with New York publishers was impressed. Did I get a large advance? No. I received enough to cover half my attorney’s fees.
But what I have received is not only the promise of seeing my book in print, but a WONDERFUL experience with my publisher of seeing that come to fruition. Unless a major disaster arises I anticipate with great emotional joy and fear seeing my words in print. It’s an experience that to describe would take a book, one around which I suspect my next work will swirl in some muted fictionalized fashion. I have written nearly 8 novels before getting this collection of short stories, four of which are based on my novels.

I have spent an enormous amount of money in gaining my education as both a person, a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and then my MFA in Creative Writing. I have spent untold nights to my computer, writing from sunset to sunrise, BEFORE and AFTER receiving my MFA. I have paid for more online writing workshops that I took while working to earn my MFA, which cost me nearly $50,000.00. I have lost track of all the writing workshops I have paid not just to attend, but cost to travel and stay there.
And I have spent money on gas to weekly writing workshops that I paid the instructor to participate in. My last instructor, Clive Matson, wrote a wonderful blurb for my book which is also on the website and at amazon. And he was extremely cheap compared to a set of instructors I studied under twice.

Writing takes time and perseverance. Improving your skills at crafting fiction takes even more of the previous two elements, AND monetary investment.

An astrologer, now deceased, told me during a reading that I was writing for my children. I immediately thought, “Yes. I’m writing to make money to help them accomplish their goals.”

In the nearly ten years that have passed since that reading I have come to realize the true meaning of the astrologer’s words. It is written on the faces of my children, ages, 20, 15 and 8, as they, a college jr., a high school freshman, and a third grader, cheer me on in having become published, they who watched me toil over the years achieve my goal, what I love and what makes my soul breathe.

Our willingness to make this commitment to what we love defines whether we are writers with a story bursting from our heart to tell. Anything less show irreverence to ourselves as creative beings and the gift we have been granted, and have a responsibility to share with others.

Writers’ Relief is just one more step along my road toward manifesting my dream—sharing my stories with the world and connecting with people through my words. I believe in time that I will make money. It will be hard earned and greatly appreciated. A well-established author, Chris Abani once told me, and others in a class he was instructing that EVERY successfully published author pays her/his dues. Some do it early in their careers, others afterwards.

When I look in the faces of my children, read the responses of my editor and publisher to my stories and the changes, which were always helpful, see the cover of my book on amazon and the publisher’s website, revel in this process of seeing my words come to print during which many of my published writers lose heart and each day struggle to maintain hope—a process in which I never felt my artistic creativity threatened in any way, I realize I have already received more than money could ascertain.

I hope my long-winded remarks bring some clarity to those reading this. I have tried to be as honest as possible.

ps, joe harrington is just an alias. i’m a woman writer.

Second, the amount they’re charging will eat up whatever you might get paid for a short work, or the advance on a book.

As to database and such…is it worth paying hundreds of dollars to have someone make a spreadsheet and mail envelopes for you?

I’m just wondering if anyone professionally published and earning even part-time living as a writer has used this service. I suspect not. A quick survey here has every professional available going, “Ack! Run away!”

When I was back taking art classes with aspirations of exhibiting my artwork ’someday’, I visited all the art galleries in my local area. I did what I called, ‘gallery gawk’, at least once a month. I didn’t think of it as market research at the time, I was just a student, walking around gawking with mouth open at all the artwork there was to see.

Had there been an Artists Relief that would have taken my work, done slides, sent me a cover letter,and portfolio submission packet for each gallery, I would’ve jumped at the bait.

Instead, I stumbled to a photographer’s studio and had slides made and copied. I wrote, revised and edited a cover letter, put together a resume’, got folders and envelopes and slide sheets. I even spent time doing individual labels for each and every slide. And then, thanks to my gallery gawking, I knew which galleries I liked and sent them my packets. Yes, I got some rejection letters. Since then, I’ve exhibited in several galleries with reasonable success. I’ve sold work and not sold work. I’ve had great and not-so-great gallery experiences. But I’ve done it without paying someone else any money. Instead, I’ve made money myself.

Now, wanting to write, I don’t know any more than I did with my art. But I guess, I’ll stick to my own method because it worked before. I’ll check out blogs, the web, magazines and writers I admire. Then, when I’m ready, I’ll send out some packets and see what happens.

Guess I’m just a die-hard do-it-myselfer.

Susan

I guess I’m just better as a do-it-myselfer.